And Wow. Indeed it was :) It had the advantage over the Grand Canyon of being accessible to mear mortals and full of Hoodoos, formed when ice and rainwater wear away the weak limestone and of course - the catch it wasn't actually a *real* canyon. It wasn't formed by flowing water but by ice wedging and chemical weathering. Aren't I full of interesting facts today?
We visited the vistors centre and spoke to a nice ranger who told us everything we needed to know so we grabbed a hiking map (a bargin at $1.99) and headed out into the Canyon itself. It's hard to describe, full of hoodoos: amazing spires, what seem to be high walled canyons and the beatiful blue sky topped it off nicely. Still a picture says a 1000 words, so it'll save my fingers:
Spot Dan in this one:
After an afternoon of hiking we decided to drive up the park road to look at the 'natural bridge', at almost 9000ft it was bloomin' freezing! So we did a great tourist thing of running from the car snapping a pic or 3 and running back again. Fab. Dan did get stopped along the way by a chap who asked if ours was the Camel he saw around Guildford... weird! Small world. It wasn't us, but we know who's he's thinking of.
We wanted to catch the Ranger program in the evening all about the stars, but that didn't start until 7:30. We checked out the only campsite left open at Bryce, they're expecting -6C (not taking into account wind chill) and 50mph winds tonight, with a 30% chance of rain. Mm. Not much fun! Knowing the average was 22inchs of snow for this month we decided to head a couple of 1000 ft down back to the KOA we stayed in last night. However, we were both still a bit worried as only 12 miles down the road they get pretty similar weather. Although we could camp, it would be a bit freezing. So, we took the opportunity to hire a KOA Kamping Kabin (ARGH I HATE THOSE 'K's'!) and at $40 (£20) for the night for light, heat, a comfy bed and electric it was a bit of a no-brainer.
Only problem is... we still have to walk to the toilets...
As an update, the ranger programme was pretty good, even better the telescopes afterwards, we saw the craters of the moon and Jupiter and the 3 of it's moons visible at the time... coooooool.
1 comment:
Glad to suggest you visit Bryce, did you go to Zion? We were there in August, and the weather was much more pleasant, all this -6 and 22" snow, and wind chill factors, that sounds very cold!!!
Continue having fun. Just think if you run out of time and there is more left to do?!, you'll have to come back and do it again!!!!
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